But It Was So Real
by GoldenManekiNeko
Summary: What if all those times Harley became independent and turned on The Joker were just reoccurring nightmares The Joker was having all along. Oneshot.


He fell to the concrete floor of his lair once his shoulder had been pierced by a bullet after seeing a bright flash that was followed by a loud, popping noise.

"Y-You shot me...You actually shot me..." His voice quaked from shock as his heart sank like a boulder underwater. A numb feeling began to wash over him as he glanced up at the jester-shaped silhouette that towered over his injured and bleeding frame. Her cyan eyes menacingly shimmered in the darkness as they glared down at him with an unfamiliar look of hatred.

"I-I don't understand...H-How could you?" Fear began to wash over him, mixing with his confusion and filling him with an unbearable amount of anxiety as he felt his stammering questions catch in his throat. He began to sweat profusely when she slowly had begun to approach him.

"That's nothin' compared to all the crummy things ya've done to me, Puddin'..." She hissed as she slowly approached him, the moonlight that shined in from the skylight of his lair bouncing off of her new, two-toned hair all the while.

"H-Harley...what happened to you? W-Why are you doing this? I thought you loved me..." Tears of betrayal began to well up within the brims of his dark eyes as he scrambled backwards to get away from the person he once felt the safest around. She still looked like his Harley but she was not the Harley he had fallen in love with.

"I've changed, Puddin'; I've changed for the better and I ain't never lettin' anyone tell me what to do or who I am again! That includes you..." She spat coldly before snapping her fingers, signaling a now-rabid Bud and Lou to bound toward him.

"Harley, please!" He begged for mercy as his once-loyal pets roughly bit down onto each of his arms. He wailed in agony as their diseased saliva began to painfully course though his veins as he struggled against his former-pets' grasp. As Bud and Lou held him in place, his once-loyal girlfriend pulled a large, sharp dagger from one of the many holsters of her two-toned corset before kneeling down in front of him.

"H-Harley...Harley, p-please...Give me another chance..." He begged between terrified sobs as tears of fear and heartbreak finally began to gush from his eyes like blood from an opened wound.

"Nuh-uh...I'm done bein' the bad guy and I'm done with you but ya still have a pretty face...I think I'll take it with me to have somethin' to remember ya by..." She grinned sinisterly as she dug her dagger into his jaw-line and began to carve his face off. The Joker let out a high-pitched scream of terror and anguish as he abruptly sat of from his bed. The nightmare he had just experienced was so intense that he had completely lost control of his bladder for the first time since he was a small child.

Still believing he was in the nightmare, The Joker began to feel the area around his face to make sure it was still intact. He began to hyperventilate as tears once again began to pour from his eyes profusely. In his state of great panic, he was completely unaware that he had awoken his previously, sleeping partner.

"Mistah. J? What's the matter? Are you...?" Harley Quinn began to question her panicked-boyfriend only to be surprised by him rolling off of the bed to get away from her. He let out a tiny yelp as his back roughly crashed into the concrete wall that was next to their bed. He felt one of his ribs shatter upon impact but he proceeded to shuffle away from her.

She was his attacker and if he didn't escape from her, she was going to carve off his face for some kind of sick trophy. He tucked himself into a tight ball in his designated corner of the room as he began to sob like a small child. For the first time since he had been dipped in chemicals, he felt trapped and unsafe. Now Harley was concerned. The Joker had been having intense nightmares that would cause him to wake up screaming recently but he had never once wet the bed nor had he done anything like this before.

"P-Puddin', it's okay...You're safe now..." Harley attempted to reassure him as she gently approached him. Another sense of panic began to wash over The Joker as he fearfully stared up at his approaching-girlfriend. Though she still had her jester hat on along with her mask and was merely wearing her red nighty with black frills, all The Joker could see was that pigtailed-menace that haunted his dreams every, single night.

"N-No! No! You stay away from me!" He screamed defensively between sobs as she closed the distance between them. There was no way he could trust her, not after what she had just tried to do to him, not after all the times she had betrayed him in his nightmares. He was tired of living in fear of her as he finally decided that it was time to fight back.

"Puddin', stop! It's me! It's just me!" Harley shrieked as The Joker lunged at her. She held her arms up in front of her face and throat to block his strikes from making contact with those areas as he attempted to strangle her. Becoming frustrated with the fact that she was hiding behind her arms instead of fighting him, he finally used his sharp, claw-like fingernails to slash one of her arms.

Harley cried out in pain and instinctively retracted her arms, finally allowing The Joker to deliver a punch to her nose that was hard enough to knock her to the floor.

"Puddin, please stop! It was just a dream!" Harley pleaded, clutching her bleeding wrist to her chest as The Joker stood over her menacingly. Reality had finally begun to sink in for The Joker as he gradually began to realize that he had just recently woken up from a dream.

"H-Harley? What happened?! W-Where am I?!" The Joker frantically began to question as his previous panic-attack had left him trapped within a state of confusion.

"Y-You're in our bedroom, in your lair...Ya had another nightmare..." Harley explained as she shakily picked herself up from the ground.

"I did? I..." The Joker began to question things further when he had taken notice to Harley's bleeding wrist and nose.

"I-I'm sorry...I'm so sorry! No wonder you're always leaving me!" The Joker broke down into yet another fit of hysterical sobs as he sank back down to his knees.

"Mistah. J...I've never left ya and I never will...I'll always be here for ya...I'll always come back to ya if we get separated..." Harley reassured her sobbing-boyfriend as she knelt down next to him to pull him into a gentle hug.

"Is that what all those nightmares were about?" She asked gently. The Joker tearfully nodded in response as he was too riddled with sobs to speak.

"Don't worry, Puddin'...I promise ya those dreams will never ever come true..." Harley reassured as she held her boyfriend close until he had cried himself to sleep. Harley hated seeing her beloved boyfriend like this. Tomorrow, she would put her psychiatrist skills to work and have a conversation with him to get to the source of his nightmares. For now, though she would let him rest. He needed it after all.


End file.
